Body Count

Thursday, January 5, 2012

“Over the expanse of five continents throughout the coming years an endless struggle is going to be pursued between violence and friendly persuasion, a struggle in which, granted, the former has a thousand times the chances of success than that of the latter. But I have always held that, if he who bases his hopes on human nature is a fool, he who gives up in the face of circumstances is a coward. And henceforth, the only honorable course will be to stake everything on a formidable gamble: that words are more powerful than munitions.”

Albert Camus in Neither Victims nor Executioners (1946) 1

“Article 55. To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate …

Article 56. To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining , with the cooperation of the national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties …”

Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (1950) 2

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

American Declaration of Independence (1776) 3

“… consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open?”

All human life is precious. Decent humans endeavour to preserve human life, albeit with a declining sense of urgency (or increasing disregard) as we progress from the immediate family, to the state and thence to the world as a whole.

Avoiding mortality is clearly a primary goal of humanity and this book is about how and why the world has performed very badly in this quest over the last half century. Fundamentally, avoiding mortality requires sensible risk management, this involving the successive processes of reportage, scientific analysis and systemic change. Unfortunately, in most areas of human activity this “World’s Best Practice” protocol is replaced by its counterproductive obverse, namely (a) lack of reportage through censorship, self-censorship and intimidation); (b) politicized, corrupted and self-serving analysis; and (c) vengeful or cynical punishment of suitable culprits (rather than useful, risk-minimizing changes to flawed human systems). In the final analysis, we have to make sensible judgments about risks to human life and the proportionality and effectiveness of our responses.

This book exposes the horrendous extent of global avoidable mortality that has totalled 1.3 billion since 1950, a figure consonant with an independent estimate of post-1950 under-5 infant mortality totalling about 0.9 billion. A broad attempt is made to rationalize this catastrophe. A major determinant is clearly war, foreign occupation and consequent increased disregard of rulers for their subjects. The last few pages of this book list positive suggestions for addressing the global avoidable mortality holocaust. The contents of this book are systematically organized as outlined in Detailed Contents with countries in the major regions dealt with in alphabetical order. Accordingly there is no subject index provided.

I would urge the readers of this book to personally humanize the avoidable mortality statistics with reference to their own experience of immediate family, the wider community and of people around the world. Further, Edmund Burke famously stated that evil occurs because of good men doing nothing. We can all do something immediately by informing others and through ethical dealings with people, corporations and countries contributing to the horrendous global avoidable mortality holocaust - a holocaust which is fundamentally due to violence, deprivation, disease and lying.

Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. We cannot walk by on the other side.

Butler, S.D. & Parfrey (2003), War is a racket: The Anti-war Classic by America’s Most decorated general, Two Other anti-Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It (Feral House, USA).